e of Shavash's behavior in bawdy houses was based on personal observations. And he doubted his behavior was much better. X X X The next day, when Bemish walked upstairs, Inis's room was empty. A pale note lay lonely on the table. "I hate him. But he called me and said that he would hang my father." Bemish was at the ministry of finance in an hour. He threw a frightened secretary away and appeared at Shavash's office door. "You scoundrel," Bemish said. "I'll tell Kissur everything. I'll tell the sovereign..." "And the human rights committee," the official nodded. "I don't want to place you in an uncomfortable position, director. I assure you that Inis's father deserves a rope - I have his dossier here. It's pretty horrible - all these dirty tricks that a small, stupid, and greedy briber can commit, the dirty tricks that ended with deaths and dishonor. Can you believe that - for a bribe, he switched some names on the arraignment orders after the Chakhar rebellion, he accepted as completed a water dam that burst in a month and destroyed a whole village. I assure you - if you complain to the sovereign, her father will certainly be executed." "Give me back my wife," Bemish screamed. The official stood up unhurriedly from his armchair, walked around the table and stopped right next to the Earthman. Bemish stared right into his attentive golden eyes and long lightly mascara coated eyelashes. "What do you want from me?" Bemish said. "Deals? Bribes?" Shavash smiled at the Earthman without answering. Shavash was still very beautiful, maybe slight overweight for his height, and Bemish was surprised to notice some grey strands in his hair. Shavash raised his hand slowly and suddenly started to unbutton Terence's jacket. Bemish was confounded and he closed his eyes. The hot hands slipped under his shirt and a soft voice sounded right next to him. "If you want to quench your thirst, don't quarrel with a spring, Earthman." Bemish didn't feel repulsion. But he definitely felt horror. Shavash's lips appeared next to his and, at least a minute passed, till Bemish realized that they were kissing. Then, a phone rang far away. Bemish came back to his senses. His jacket was unbuttoned, the shirt stood out above the pants in a funny way and something jutted in the pants. The small official stood in front of him and looked at the Earthman with laughing eyes. Bemish raised his hand lifelessly and wiped his mouth with the palm. "Beat it," Shavash said. "Take your concubine and beat it. She bores me. She mewled in bed all night." Bemish retreated crabwise to the door, turned around and rushed out. "Button yourself, at least!" the official sarcastically shouted after him. Having torn out the office door handle, Bemish jumped out into the foyer. Something flapped in the air and a plastic folder fell at Bemish's feet with multicolored pages standing out. It was the folder with the Inis' father dossier. Bemish snatched it and kept running. X X X Nobody believed that Kissur would make friends with the Earthman. Greenmailer, par venue, gobbler that has recently swallowed a small automated door company with LSV help and used it as a step to swallow something bigger; one of the youngsters, that Trevis made his money with - a nobody without Trevis. This man had the crappiest reputation on Wall Street. "The hungriest of Trevis's scoundrels," the director of the automated door company said about him after he had been fired. How could Kissur, who considered a well-behaved president of, say, Morgan James to be an usurer fit for the gallows, be friends with this financial horse thief? The friendship between the Earthman and Kissur caused a bit of harmless gossip - everybody expected that either the Earthman calls Kissur a pedigreed bandit or Kissur reproaches Bemish with the latter's passionate avarice. However, Kissur's presenting Bemish with his manor, caused thoughts and glances in the five main precincts. Bemish visited the capital police prefect to sign a paper with a blue line. The prefect congratulated him with the manor, sighed and said. "You shouldn't be so close to Kissur. Do you know how he launched his career? He and his seven friends robbed a state caravan. They killed thirty six guards and Kissur put the caravan master's head on a stake, thought the man was not guilty of anything except having children and an old mother that he needed to support. Then, Kissur quarreled with the robbers because their leader didn't want to step aside for him and he baked the leader in an earth oven." "But now," Bemish quipped, "Kissur doesn't have to rob caravans." The prefect passed his hand over his cheek. "There are, alas, dozens of people around Kissur. These people can handle weapons, despise bribers and traders and think robbery to be the only respectable profit source. Do you think that our country is poor due to bribers and large taxes? Alas, our businessmen don't pay money to the government, they, instead, pay money to the bandits who protect them from the other bandits." "Nobody," Bemish said, "asked me for the protection money." "Exactly," the police prefect said. Bemish wanted to grab the damn official by his neck and ask him whether he was hinting that Kissur was in charge of the capital criminals. He, however, thanked him for the signature and left. Although, Kissur did take him to one of the city's most famous thief's taverns and he was welcome there - Bemish learned later that if he ambled in this tavern without a pass, he wouldn't have just been killed there - the tavern's guests would have been fed his body in a soup - that was their cute way of getting rid of the corpses. X X X That day, Bemish was in the finance ministry, at Shavash's. Entering his office, he stumbled upon a pale upset man, dressed in standard clothing but having soft Weian manners. Shavash led him into the garden, where fountains and birds chirped, and ordered a table with appetizers. Somehow the conversation unnoticeably drifted to Idari, Kissur's wife. Shavash said that if not for Idari, Kissur would have smashed his head long time ago. "He loves her a lot," Shavash said, sighing. Three months ago, he feasted the people at her naming day, and he spent three million." He paused and added. "Where do you think Kissur gets so much money if he doesn't take bribes and doesn't do any business?" "It's the tax police business and not mine, to know where he gets the money," Bemish said. "And it's the sovereign's business, since he bequests him an oil well or a manor every month." Shavash waved his hand and started drinking tea. In five minutes, he suddenly said. "Do you know the man who left just before you came in? He is the Damass insurance company director. It was robbed yesterday. They took twenty million dinars in cash." Bemish was surprised - newspapers published nothing about the robbery. "Why did they have so much money in cash?" Bemish inquired. "That's exactly the problem," Shavash sighed. "That's the question, who is the company going to pay such a sum of money to - on a holiday evening?" He paused. "It will not appear in the newspapers. But the company was indeed robbed." "Will it appear to the police?" "Yes," Shavash said, "since our police - if asked - will not inquire why the company needed this money." Bemish finished his coffee and asked. "Listen, Shavash, are you trying to tell me that Kissur robs banks at nights or that you, at least, will do your best to convince the sovereign of it?" "Come on, Mr. Bemish," the official was taken aback, "why did you..." And suddenly he tousled his hair. "He is a madman! If he is passing a house on fire, he will rush inside to get a child out and, if he is passing a house that's not burning, he will set it aflame." Bemish bit his lip. The official was lying gently and consciously but he was correct on one point - Kissur despised bankers unflappably and he would approve of a bank robber. The words "order," "debt," and "commitment to the sovereign" were never far from his lips but Bemish knew perfectly well, that this adherent of order lived his life in such a way that he far outperformed any anarchist and rebel buff. Kissur wouldn't rob a bank for money but the sovereign's favorite could easily take the money for fun and throw it in the next canal. X X X In the evening, when Bemish dropped by the hotel, yearning for the food of his childhood and hoping to get something other than a marinated jellyfish or a guinea pig burger, somebody called him. Bemish turned around and recognized Richard Giles and another Richard - MacFarlein - the IC people. "Drop it," Giles said. "What?" "Drop this project. You won't get anything out of it, anyway. Do something else - build the business center instead of Kaminsky." Bemish felt his face paling with rage. It looked like Giles has already picked up the local officials' manners. "I," Bemish said, "have invested too much in this business to just drop it." "How much have you invested," Giles smiled. "IC will pay your expenses." "How is that? Since when do the private companies pay the competitors' expenses?" "You will not win this auction," Giles said. Here, McFarlein spoke softly. "Mr. Bemish," he said, "why do you need this planet? Bribers, criminals, heretics, zealots, and now, terrorists. Have you heard that yesterday an Earthman was shot in Chakhar - he owned several plants. By the way, the Chakhar governor's son did the shooting - a Sorbonne graduate, an anarcho-communist or something like that. Another lad, an Earthman, was with him... "We will instigate a full-scale terror against the Earth exploitators, weed the bribers out and build the Crystal Palace on Weia afterwards, and erect two monuments in front of the palace - for Karl Marx and for the sovereign Irshahchan." Bemish stared at him dumbfounded. "Uh-huh," a thought passed his mind, "isn't it the same lad who came with Ashidan?" And Giles cast a transparent eye and delivered. "Yeah. Aren't you afraid to be shot by a heretic, a local or an imported one?" Bemish took Giles by a button and said. "Listen, Giles, have you seen how Kissur casts a spear?" "What does a spear have to do with it?" Giles was astonished. "Kissur just casts a spear and the spear runs through a hefty birch all the way. And today one guy told me that I should keep away from Kissur since he robbed caravans and another hinted that I should keep away from Kissur since he robbed banks. And though Kissur doesn't rob banks - I am sure, you know, that if I pass our conversation to Kissur, and I'll do it, and I am killed afterwards - then Kissur will kill you, Mr. Giles and you, Mr. McFarlein. And he will assuredly kill you - nobody has heard yet about Kissur wanting to kill somebody and failing." Giles stepped back. Clearly, he didn't like all that much the words about the spear and the birch. X X X Richard Giles walked upstairs to his room still under the impression from the conversation in the hall. Whistling through his teeth, he dialed the personal Shavash's line number - no secretaries - and, in two seconds, he said in the receiver. "This son of a bitch, Bemish - are you still going to admit him to the auction?" "I guarantee you," Shavash replied, "that this man is absolutely harmless. Everything will happen accordingly to our plan." "Harmless?" Giles screamed. "Do you know that half of his inquires on Earth deal with IC? Do you know what he told Kissur?" "I know," Shavash said ironically, "if I am not mistaken, you got the taped conversation from me." "Damn it! Yes, that was you. Anyway, do you think that's fine? What if Kissur repeats these words to the sovereign? Where will we be then?" "What do you want?" "Take action." "I will not take any action," Shavash said, "causing your newspapers to write that the Empire is an unsafe place for foreign investors. If you take such an action, you will not get even the tiniest piece of Assalah, not even the size of a melon seed. Have I made myself clear?" "Very clear," Giles muttered. "You have no reasons to be nervous," Shavash said. "No reasons? What if he just buys the damn company?" "You will have to offer a bit more for the shares. Nine point one dinar, at least. You have to agree that I just can't give the company away to an investor that paid twice less for it. Everything has a limit." "Son of a bitch," Giles said, slamming the receiver down. "He is just using this Bemish to squeeze more money out of us. Nine point one! How can I get a clearance for this money?" "No problem," his companion said. "We can use an alternative approach and deflate his ego meanwhile." "Have you heard, what he said?" "I heard it. I said - a totally alternative approach. Who finances this Bemish guy? Trevis..." Bemish left the hotel for the city. He spent some time in the temple that he had visited with Kissur and descended to the tavern. A young man met him in the tavern. The young man offered to sell him twenty thousand Assalah shares at six hundred a piece. They bargained a bit and Bemish bought the shares for five hundred eighty. Bemish silently pulled the checkbook out and tore of a check that was already filled with the correct number. The young man looked at him respectfully and said. "How did you know what price we would agree on?" Bemish grinned. He had three checkbooks in his pockets and all of them had the first check filled out - the other two checks Bemish would feed to the garbage burner in an hour. Bemish signed the check and gave it to the youth. "Would you like to eat?" Bemish asked. "I'd rather go." "Hold on. How did you get the shares?" "They are not mine, they belong to my uncle." "How did your uncle get them?" "He bought them." "Why did he buy these shares in particular?" "He bought a lot of securities." "Why did he decide to sell them?" "He needs money urgently. He got sent to prison." "Why?" The youth pointed at his basket. "Because of the Assalah shares?" "The investigator was asking him about these shares at the interrogation. He hinted my uncle that he would let him go if my uncle gives the shares to a higher official that would like to acquire them." "Shavash?" "Don't say it out loud. It works this way, Mr. Earthman - while a word is in your mouth - you are its master, and when the word is out of your mouth - it is your master." "Why didn't your uncle give the shares to the official?" "He went nuts, when he heard it," the youth said. "He said that he would give these shares to a man that can kick the official in the butt." "He could sell them cheaper, then." "No. The jailers take too much. Good food in the jail costs more than in the best restaurant, you know. Also, very strict orders concerning my uncle have been given and the jailers charge him a higher price for being benevolent." "Oh, well," Bemish said. "It could be worse, two million for half a percent." The youth hesitated. "It's actually," he said, "no more than twenty five hundredth of a percent." "Whaaat?!" "Don't you know that? Half a year ago, when the share price was lower than the moon in a well, Shavash secretly issued additional shares and distributed them among his friends." "Secret shares?!!" "What's wrong with that?" "Nothing, this is first time in my life when I stumbled upon this particular type of securities manipulation. And how many shares have been issued?" "I don't know. Some people say that it was a million and a half, some people say that it was two million." "Who says that? Where could I find this out?" "Promise not to refer to my uncle's name." "I don't know his name, how can I refer to it?" "Still, promise it." "Ok." "I think that the Assalah district chief judge has these shares and knows a lot." X X X Bemish returned to Kissur's villa late at night. He almost always stopped there now when he visited the capital. He wanted to see Idari more often. A phone call woke Bemish in the middle of the night. "Yes?" "Terence?" Bemish almost jumped up. The LSV director was talking to him from Earth. "We have a great offer for you," Trevis said, "the Union Disk company. They make laser disks. Get here. It can be bought." "I am working on Assalah." "It's not a promising deal. We will not finance it." Bemish fell apart inside. "Ronald! You guaranteed it..." "We will pay you the forfeit." "I don't need the forfeit, I need Assalah." "Get back to Earth," Trevis said, "and we will talk about Union Disk." "What should I do with the Assalah shares? I bought 17%!!!" "Sell them. It's your profession." "If you don't finance this deal, I will find another company." "You will not find another company, Terence, because no other company lets you on their doorstep. You are nothing, Terence. You are a greenmailer with twenty million dollars in your pocket. We made you. Nobody else needs you. You are a financial pirate. I will be waiting for you tomorrow in my office, at fifteen thirty. If you don't get stuck in traffic, you will make it." And Ronald Trevis put the receiver down. X X X Bemish turned the light on, put the clothes on and sat at the table. He sat there for a while, till he heard the door creaking. Bemish turned around - Kissur and Khanadar the Dried Date walked in. Khanadar looked quite dashing in black laced pants and a brocade barbarian jacket. Kissur had a grey suit and a tie on. "Hey," Kissur said, "it's fantastic that you are not asleep. We decided to get some kicks in a pub. Let's go." Bemish was silent. "What has happened to you, Terence? You look like a fly in insect spray!" "I am screwed," Bemish said. "Trevis refuses to finance the deal." "Why?" "I don't know. I don't know where Shavash got such powerful connections." "I see. What are you going to do?" "I am going to sell the shares. I don't have any other choice." "Are you going to sell them at the higher price than you bought them at?" "Naturally... I hold a large block. I can make IC's life hard if it doesn't buy it at the price I want. If I, for instance, appeal IC's actions in an international arbiter court, it will get into one hell of a trouble..." "It's called greenmail, right?" Kissur specified. "Yes." "Shavash was right, then," Kissur said. "How dare you!" Bemish shouted, leaping up - and he saw Kissur's contorted face in front of him and the white knuckles on his fist. Bemish managed to duck the first punch. The second one threw him off the chair and to the floor. Bemish somersaulted and bounced back on his feet, the Kissur's boot square tip missed his ear by a centimeter. Bemish had a chance of holding his own against Kissur but Khanadar the Dried Date was also in the office. "Dumb jerk," Bemish screamed getting in a fighting stance but here Khanadar grabbed him by the elbows. At the next moment, Kissur's knee collided with Bemish's groin; Kissur turned and kicked Bemish in the ear with the same leg. The Earthman collapsed to the floor. Kissur sat atride him and started to choke him. "Haven't I told you," Kissur hissed sitting astride the expiring Earthman, "that I would kill you?" Bemish grunted and hissed striving to say something. Khanadar approached and stood next to them. "Let him go for a second," Khanadar said, "let him admit that he wanted to cheat us from the very beginning. He thinks it's a planet he can take a good crap at." Kissur grinned and loosened up the clench. Bemish lay like a worm on a garden path. "Idiot," the financier coughed, "I wanted to buy Assalah." An atrocious kick with a boot in the ribs silenced him. "Again." "I wanted to buy Assalah. Trevis was ready to finance the deal. I don't know why he refused. He was browbeaten." Another kick followed, this time it was the groin. "Liar! Trevis didn't refuse anything. You were playing your favorite game! You took us for worms, didn't you?" "I wanted to buy Assalah. Trevis was browbeaten." "Who?" "Shavash." "Yeah? Why wasn't it IC?" "IC has headquarters in an Arkansas dog's kernel. Their balls are too small to push Trevis around. They should buy a new fax machine first." "Why is Shavash afraid of you?" "Shavash wants a buyer who will blink at all his frauds. It was not a company - they were just pumping the budget money into private pockets! Last year Shavash secretly issued more bonds! I think that this goes against even the bizarre local securities regulations." "What is "secret bond issue?" "I don't know. I have never stumbled upon such a financial product as a secretly issued bond in all my life. But, basically, it means that Shavash re-divided the company accordingly to his wishes - he gave his friends more and he devalued the stocks belonging to his enemies or bystanders." "What about the state's share?" "It depends on how many additional shares the state obtained." "He is lying through his teeth," Khanadar said. "They would have arranged it with Shavash about thieving. He was going to cheat us from the very beginning." "No!" "All right," Kissur said. "I will believe you but only with one condition. You will sell the company shares at the same price you bought them." "No." Kissur grinned and took one of the swords hanging in the room from a prop. He got it out of the sheath and pushed its triangular tip in Bemish's throat. "Yes, or I will kill you." Bemish licked his lips. He didn't doubt that Kissur would kill him. It's stupid. Terence Bemish, a successful financier, half-crook half-genius, had never considered ending his life in a huge city manor of an Empire ex-minister - in the manor, where not a single servant would ever blurt out anything about his fate or, to the opposite, all the servants would swear that Bemish left the manor gate whole and unhurt... Nobody would ever prove anything. Even Shavash would not kill him. Not because he minded killing, but because he was a rational man and he clearly would not want Weia to be declared a place where foreign investors were found with their throats cut... Nothing is cheaper than hiring a killer. But Shavash didn't kill Bemish, he went for Trevis instead - it was an order of magnitude more difficult and expensive... "If I don't sell the shares with a rake-off," Bemish said, "I'll go bankrupt. They will point their fingers at me. I will not do what you want." "Take your knife, Kissur, and cut his balls off, " Khanadar said, "it doesn't befit you to dirty your noble sword by a money-grubber." "You wanted that from the very beginning, didn't you?" "No, I wanted to buy Assalah." "How much do you need to buy Assalah?" "If only half of my potential creditors fulfill their promises without Trevis, I'll need five million." "I will find this money," Kissur said, throwing the sword back in the sheath and he left. The Sixth Chapter Where company AC declares its real name while Mr. Shavash mentions several unexpected thoughts about democracy's drawbacks. The announcement of the investment auction for the acquisition of the state-owned block of shares was published in the government's White Herald a day before the application deadline. The announcement mandated that the auction participants should turn in a deposit of 6% of projected investment and should demonstrate reliable proof of being able to fulfill the assumed financial obligations. Trevis hadn't called Bemish since - it was below his dignity. On the other hand, the corporate financing department head called and told Bemish that he didn't need to hurry back to Trevis' headquarters since he wouldn't be received anyway. The next day, Bemish stepped out of a luxurious limo that arrived at the ministry of finance, formerly first minister Rush's palace. A crowd was already there, including the local financiers who, having heard about the Assalah fray, were willing to risk taking part in the auction. Kissur appeared in the registration hall at almost the same time as Bemish. Shavash, the director of the company offered for tender, ignored Bemish utterly. He was talking to an Earth journalist. The subject of the talk was the importance of foreign investors - only they were able to force Weian companies to correspond to international audit standards and raise Empire finances to a new level. Bemish silently watched the official registering his application and entering the necessary financial contrivances into the computer. What if this bastard makes an error and Bemish won't be allowed to participate on technical grounds. The official finished the registration, shoved an embossed sheet with the application in the printer and, having printed everything, carried it to Shavash for a signature. Shavash, without being distracted from the progressive interview, signed everything. Bemish moved away to a small table where, by Weian custom, fruits and a special bowl constantly filled with peach juice stood. The juice filled the bowl through a special tube and symbolized the everlasting plenty. Bemish poured some juice in a cup and here Giles approached him. "Can I ask you where you got the money?" Giles enquired. "The investment company Plana offered me credit." "What kind of company is it?" "It's a company located on Gera," Bemish replied gloating. "A company located on Gera? Why not a company located in a devil's arse? When did it come to being, yesterday?" Bemish looked at his watch. "To be precise, it came to being today, three hours ago." Meanwhile, Shavash finished his enlightened interview and led Kissur aside. "Did you," he asked, "loan Bemish money?" "Am I a usurer?" Kissur was offended, "to loan money? It was a gift." "You were born of a Barsharg goat!" Shavash swore. "This is the last you'll see of it." "Let's see," Kissur said, "who wins the auction." Here, another Earth journalist approached Shavash and the company director started repeating how only a scrupulous foreign investor could save Weian economics. By the evening, the bored journalists, hanging out at the cafe, could record in their notebooks that three companies were interested in the state's offer - Bemish's ADO, IC Corporation, and Rusby and C - were offering to buy the shares out first and to finance the construction out of the galactic company resources afterwards. Five or six large investment banks were also interested. They were not going to buy Assalah shares themselves. They mostly offered to the government various alternatives of convertible bonds that these banks would distribute to the Galactic investors - the bonds would be converted, at some date, to Assalah shares now belonging to the state. Such a large number of investment bank aspirants had surprised Bemish at first but he was told later that actually his modest person was the source. The players on the fund market ferreted out that Terence Bemish was going to buy some blip-blop limited in some banana republic, decided that it had to be a swell deal and followed him like the honey gatherers follow a bee. X X X A phone call from Kissur woke Bemish up at 3am. "Hello, Terence. The investment auction is cancelled. Two hours, after the applications had been submitted, Shavash sold 51% of state-owned Assalah shares to IC Company at five and a half dinars per share." "What do you mean sold?" Bemish choked. The line went off. X X X Fifteen minutes later, a car stopped under the hotel windows and Kissur jumped out of it. "Dress," Kissur said. "We are going to the sovereign." "Why?" At this point, the phone rang again. Bemish picked up the receiver. "Terence, this is Shavash. Call your complaint off." "What complaint?" "Don't pretend. Call off the complaint that you wrote to the sovereign requesting to arrest me for bribery." "Have you lost your mind? I've never written this crap!" "Terence, if you go to the sovereign you will be squashed flat. You can forget about working in a bank - they won't hire you as a cashier in a supermarket. Got it?" "I haven't..." Shavash slammed the receiver. "I signed the complaint for you, Bemish," Kissur said. "The sovereign will examine it at this morning audience." Bemish grabbed his head. "Oh, my God, Kissur are you nuts? If you don't have mercy for me, have mercy for your own country!" "I have mercy for my country," Kissur said. "You explained to me, what IC is yourself. They will just rob us and that's it. Or, were you bulling me?" "I didn't bull you, Kissur. Just get it - the contract has been signed. That's it. Finita la comedia. These stocks are IC's property. If they find out that an international company can have its property taken away from it on your planet just because some authorities think that some bribes were involved, you will not need any spaceports anymore! No financier will ever come here! It's worse than tank trips over a joint company. " Kissur stuck out his lip stubbornly. Clearly, the threat that no more dinar and dollar fans appear in the Empire, didn't frighten him much. "Get it, you stupid idiot, that any losses resulting from Assalah sold off incorrectly won't even come close with the losses resulting from the cancellation of a completed contract. I will not even mention that nobody will let me back to LSV. I will not even mention that IC is totally in its right to sue me in arbitration court even if I get your complaint thrown back at my face!" "But I will say that it's my complaint." "And they will, of course, believe you on the spot," Bemish waved his hand. "Well, leave me alone for these three hours." "What are you gonna do?" "Think," Bemish said. X X X Exactly four hours later, Bemish, accompanied by Kissur walked down the sovereign garden's paths to a small six room pavilion. Above the pavilion entrance, a flag with an inscription Fairness and Concentration Hall was swaying. Two golden peacocks of wondrous craftsmanship guarded the inner hall entrance. The sovereign Varnazd sat in a down armchair next to a window. He wore a long white dress, with wide sleeves fastened at the wrists by pearl clasps and, uncovered, his face, thin as onion undergarment peels, looked somewhat lost and nave. Shavash followed Bemish into the hall and first minister Yanik also came in. Shavash and Yanik were draped in the ceremonial kaftans with all their rank insignias - Bemish had never seen them before. A red fiery dragon, with rubies sewn in his claws, on the first minister's dress dazed him unexpectedly and Bemish suddenly felt something he had never suspected before - a certain meagerness of his impeccably made cashmere wool suite compared to the red dragon with the ruby decorated claws. As for Kissur, he was dressed the same way as he had been earlier, visiting Bemish, - in ragged leather pants. "You filed a complaint, Mr. Bemish," the sovereign said, "could you describe how you were mistreated." "I didn't file this complaint," Bemish said. "And, having certain business ethics views, I consider it impossible to request a re-consideration of a completed contract. However, I have a question to Mr. Shavash - what was your decision to cancel the investment auction based on and what was your decision to sell the company for a three times less money, than I offered, based on?" The sovereign turned to the vice-minister of finance. "I would like to hear your answer, Mr. Shavash." "We didn't cancel the auction," Shavash stated. "We just ran it on a shorter time scale. Considering Mr. Bemish's application, we judged it to be incomplete since LSV investment bank, which had been expected to underwrite the bonds, and several other large commercial banks, which had been expected to advance credit to Mr. Bemish, pulled out having realized that the offer had been overpriced. "After some investors pulled out, I found others!" Bemish cried out. "The company from Gera, that loaned money to you, doesn't have any credit history and is very suspicious. SC Trading that promised to distribute your bonds is a tiny investment boutique with absolutely no authority on the capital market. We doubt that the bonds distributed by it will be worth more than fifty cents for a dinar. Therefore, your application is comparable with that of IC." Shavash paused and continued. "Meanwhile, Mr. Bemish's actions clearly demonstrated that he was not going to acquire Assalah. Long before his arrival, he had been buying Assalah stocks through several companies. Violating the law, he didn't register the fact that he owned in reality more than 13% of Assalah stocks. The only goal of his actions was to put pressure at the future company management so that they would acquire the stocks at a higher price. To achieve this purpose Terence Bemish didn't shrink from anything. A foreigner ignoring the ways and customs of our country, thinking only about his rake-off, - he abused his position as a manor owner forcing the peasants present him with their shares. Using his highly placed connections, he browbeat a local official into giving him the Assalah shares that the latter acquired when their price was forty ishevik a share; afterwards, he had the gall to fire the official. Since Terence Bemish violated the regulations regarding share block registration, I demand the companies Raniko, Alvisir Trust and LLA be removed from the Assalah stock owners list without any compensation. " The Emperor raised his hand. "These are serious accusations, Mr. Bemish. Can you answer them?" "Can I answer them? Of course! Shavash has just mentioned 13% of shares that the peasants had received free of charge as compensation for the spaceport construction taking place on their land. Would you really believe that Shavash waited for me to seize the stocks from the peasants? Yes! I confiscated the stocks from the official and I didn't pay him anything - because I was going to return these stocks to the peasants. Shavash accuses me of violating the local securities regulations. It would have taken place if Raniko had owned more than 5% of shares and hadn't registered it. Otherwise, there are no violations involved. Unlike me, Shavash can be accused of many things, most importantly, that when the stock price plummeted to the minimum, Shavash secretly issued more stocks and distributed them among his friends. Weian securities regulations are quite bizarre but those actions are criminal even here. I will be bold enough to claim that IC was aware of this outrage taking place and that nothing but this thievery caused Mr. Shavash to sell the company to the people that will not make any complaints. "Can you answer these accusations, Mr. Shavash?" the Emperor asked. "Of course," Shavash said. "I will, however, need a computer with a CDROM." It took a moment, for a CD player (instead of a computer) to be delivered to the room. Shavash fished a disk out of his pocket, inserted it in a slit and pressed a button. An open tavern veranda appeared on the screen, together with a table and a window. Bemish sat at the table with a small man - tensing, he recognized the palace official offering him the paintings from the Empire treasury on sale. The official pulled several photographs out and Bemish started to leaf through them. The camera zoomed in on the photographs where Bemish suddenly saw the Koinna's painting. Then, Bemish pointed at a girl and a dragon with his finger and he chose several more photographs. The official nodded. Then, the camera glanced over a group of people delivering several boxes to Bemish's villa and zoomed in on a girl and a dragon in his office. "This man talks about ethics," Shavash said, "buying, meanwhile, for a thousand dinars the paintings that cost millions - the paintings from the forbidden chambers that a mere mortal could not put his eyes on! The Koinna's painting is a national treasure, this painting numbers among the palace's first hundred sacred objects, the Emperor's ancestors brought bloodless sacrifices and prayed for the dynasty fortune in front of this painting - in his gall, this man hung this painting above his table - so that the two founders of the Alom dynasty could look at the doughnuts that the Earthman eats at his table assessing the Empire value at his computer! I don't know, what punishments fit the exchange brokers, but nobody has yet rescinded the law about palace thieves having their guts torn out! And nothing is written there about exceptions being made for Earthmen, since the law was enacted four hundred fifty years ago when the Empire was the center of the world and nobody heard a whisper yet about all these people from the skies!" The first minister Yanik even clicked his tongue in admiration listening to Shavash. Unlike the Earthmen, he knew very well that the sovereign was indifferent to securities and uranium mines, that he knew very little about, but that he was enraged to the utmost by palace robbery; almost everything stolen had not only artistic value but was also sacred, and the ignorance of the Earthmen buying invaluable objects for a penny hurt the sovereign to his heart. "You gave me this painting!" Bemish shouted. "I gave you a copy, while you arranged it with the thieves to substitute it for an original!" "You are a piece of shit and a scoundrel," Kissur screamed at Shavash. "And this tape is a fake." "I am ready to submit this tape to an international examination," Shavash claimed, smiling, "with experts' opinions published in all the newspapers." Giles quietly leaned towards Bemish and whispered. "They warned you, Bemish, that they would flatten you into the ground. That they would make egg powder out of you and send it as humanitarian aid to Ganaya lizards. Do you understand that you stand a chance to be hanged?" "Can I have your complaint, please, Mr. Bemish?" the Emperor said. Bemish sat completely dismayed. He was close to bursting into tears. Shavash smiling impudently pulled the folder out of his hand and handed it to the sovereign. The sovereign took an ancient quill dusted with gold powder and signed the complaint. Then, he took the seal, showing a dragon catching its tail, off his neck, pressed the seal to a pad saturated with incensed phoenix's blood ink and stamped it on the paper. He handed the sheet over to Bemish and said. "Accept my congratulations, Mr. Bemish - I relieved Mr. Shavash from the company director position and appointed you at this post." "But sovereign," Shavash exclaimed with indignation. The sovereign spun and his embroidered sleeves cuffed Bemish in the face.